ANNOUNCE: ghci-ng package

Herbert Valerio Riedel <hvr <at> gnu.org>
2013-07-20 09:41:56 GMT

Hello GHC HQ,
I wanted to inform you that I created the `ghci-ng` package
http://hackage.haskell.org/package/ghci-ng-7.6.3.3
which essentially is the ghc/* folder from the GHC source-tree with a
ghci-ng.cabal file put in place (and some dummy .h files) to make the
interactive-mode GHC front-end compilable w/o requiring the full GHC
source-tree.
The reason I created ghci-ng was to be able to backport features from
GHC HEAD so that Haskell user not living on the bleeding edge (such as
Haskell Platform users) don't have to wait for half a year or so till
they can use new features[1]. On the other hand, this might also allow
to expose new work-in-progress features to users in production
environments to play with before those features find their way into a
final GHC release, and thus help with developing new GHCi features in a
more "agile" way by getting feedback from potential users earlier.
So ghci-ng is *not* supposed to replace ghci, but rather provide an
testing ground for evaluating new/experimental features which may get
merged into upstream GHCi eventually if they prove useful.
Please let me know what you think of this.
[1]: The killer-feature right now being the new `:complete` command
which allows the latest (unreleased) haskell-mode to provide
REPL-completion from within the Emacs buffer.

RE: ANNOUNCE: ghci-ng package

Herbert, it certainly sounds like a good thing to me.
Simon
| -----Original Message-----
| From: Glasgow-haskell-users [mailto:glasgow-haskell-users-bounces@...]
| On Behalf Of Herbert Valerio Riedel
| Sent: 20 July 2013 10:42
| To: glasgow-haskell-users@...
| Subject: ANNOUNCE: ghci-ng package
|
| Hello GHC HQ,
|
| I wanted to inform you that I created the `ghci-ng` package
|
| http://hackage.haskell.org/package/ghci-ng-7.6.3.3
|
| which essentially is the ghc/* folder from the GHC source-tree with a
| ghci-ng.cabal file put in place (and some dummy .h files) to make the
| interactive-mode GHC front-end compilable w/o requiring the full GHC
| source-tree.
|
| The reason I created ghci-ng was to be able to backport features from
| GHC HEAD so that Haskell user not living on the bleeding edge (such as
| Haskell Platform users) don't have to wait for half a year or so till
| they can use new features[1]. On the other hand, this might also allow
| to expose new work-in-progress features to users in production
| environments to play with before those features find their way into a
| final GHC release, and thus help with developing new GHCi features in a
| more "agile" way by getting feedback from potential users earlier.